


What the People Want

by FreshBrains



Category: The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Arranged Marriage, Canon - Movie, Community: femslashex, F/F, First Kiss, POV Alternating, Post-Mockingjay Part 1, Scheming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 21:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5020681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshBrains/pseuds/FreshBrains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We play roles, President Coin. There’s an old writer who said something along the lines of ‘the world’s a stage and the men and women merely players.’” Effie rests her hands on Alma’s shoulders, a comforting gesture. “If we can’t play the part, the audience won’t respond very well, will they?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	What the People Want

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lillypillylies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lillypillylies/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy! Since Effie is in District 13, this is all based on film canon rather than book canon.

Effie doesn’t sleep well in 13. Her roommate works in the med-bay and is gone all hours of the day, coming in and out right when Effie dozes off. She’s an odd woman, anyways. Tall, skinny. Nervous. She makes _Effie_ nervous, and since Effie doesn’t have access to her nerve pills, she appreciates her absences.

But even in her restless sleep, Effie still doesn’t expect to roll over to face the door and see a small face in front of hers. She startles, sitting up. “Hello, there. And who might you be?”

The little girl just gives her a toothless smile. She’s young, too young for the Games, so Effie can’t guess at her age. “You’re pink,” she says in a whisper.

Effie stares for a moment before touching the small curls of hair peeking out from her headscarf. She had indeed gone Petal Pink for a bit, inspired by the flowers that grew in 11, but that was right before she made the snap decision to deflect to 13 and abandon her touch-up kit. “Yes, I suppose I am,” she says nervously. The girl rocks back on her heels; her corn-silk hair is plaited in two neat braids. “Your hair is very lovely, too. Natural blondes like you are quite rare.”

The girl nods solemnly. “I’m sorry I came in without knocking. Mama will be mad.”

Effie softens. She can’t imagine being a little one cooped up in the bunker all the time—as a child, she had the free reign of her father’s estate, even though it was smaller than all the neighbors’. “That’s quite alright.” She loosened her headscarf, revealing a lock of pink hair. “Would you like to braid it like yours?”

The girl grins, but before she can bound onto Effie’s cot with her, a woman appears in the doorway. “Fern,” she admonishes, face red with exertion. “I told you to keep close in these halls! You could’ve gotten lost.” She glances at Effie, then averts her eyes, as so many of them do. “I’m sorry. She gets excited.”

“Oh, no trouble at all,” Effie says, offering the woman one of her beaming Escort smiles, but the woman is already whisking Fern away by the arm, their shoes pattering down the hallway’s metal grates.

Effie sighs, leaning back in bed. She has no idea what time of day it is above, but she knows sleep evades her and the halls are still relatively quiet. She stands to shut her door, hoping for a few moments of quiet before she meets with Haymitch and Plutarch, but a familiar figure crosses the hall, eyes connecting with Effie’s.

“Cressida,” Effie says briskly, tightening the scarf around her head. Their resident director is one of those women who always looks so naturally camera-ready, even in combat fatigues and a tank top. She sends a surge of jealousy deep in Effie’s belly. “You’re up early. I think.”

Cressida gives her a tight-lipped smile; it’s one of the only noticeable expressions she makes, she’s such a cagey one. “I have breakfast duty today.” She peers into Effie’s room. “You had a visitor?”

“Something of the sort,” Effie says, moving to her small dresser. _Hm, what shall we wear today…grey rags or beige rags?_ “Her mother whisked her away like I was poison.”

“You’re good with kids,” Cressida muses, leaning against the door frame.

“Is that so surprising?” Effie shakes out her hair, frowning in the small looking glass above the dresser. “My job is to make children feel safe and comfortable, you know.”

Cressida snorts in derision but doesn’t say anything. Effie ignores it. “I’ll see you in the briefing before we take Katniss to 8 today. And Effie?” Effie glances up. “Wear your hair down. This place needs a little color.”

*

“May I come in?”

Alma Coin stands alone at the Command Port, hands braced on the table. The room is quiet, nothing happening on the camera feeds or radars, and the crew is absent during the early hours. She turns, her curtain of silver hair shining in the harsh overhead light. “Cressida. Of course, this room is as much yours as it is mine.”

Cressida enters, sitting to Coin’s left in one of the heavy chairs. She looks at the blueprints spread over the table. “President Snow’s house? Is there a plan of attack?”

Coin shakes her head and briskly rolls the prints away from view. “Nothing you need to be worried about. What’s on your mind?” She folds her hands in front of her body, always poised and ready for _something_.

“I’ve been hearing some…dissent,” Cressida says, fingers steepled below her chin. “Nothing serious.” She rolls her eyes when Coin stiffens in her chair. “They’re loyal to you. Believe me. But that doesn’t mean they _like_ you.”

“I care little about being liked,” Coin says.

Cressida stands, pacing the room. “Okay, that’s fair. But what are we trying to do, President Coin? What are we trying to instill in our people?”

“Above all else,” Coin says with a sigh, “ _hope_.”

“Right,” Cressida says. “And when you had your family with you—“

“That’s enough, Cressida,” Coin says, icy eyes flashing, but Cressida just holds her hands up, asking for just another minute.

“When you had your family, you had hope. So I have a plan to make people believe you _still_ have hope. They want happiness, smiling, children running free into their parents' waiting arms.” Cressida leans against the table, elbow brushing the blueprints. “So we’re going to have a wedding.”

*

Alma rarely indulges in drink, but as she sits at the edge of her bed that night, her roommate snoring next to her, she plucks a flask out from her night table and takes a swig of the clear, bitter alcohol to calm her nerves.

She thinks of her wedding, her first wedding, her _real_ wedding. Her dress was a simple white muslin, her hair crowned in daisies. She was so young, so hopeful. Her husband was the only person she ever really trusted. But that sort of trust doesn't exist anymore. If you could die tomorrow, waiting for the perfect moment wasn't an option.

“Effie Trinket,” she says to herself, tasting the name on her lips. A frivolous name, so very like the Capitol. Effie Coin didn’t sound much better.

Instead of going back to sleep, Alma slips on a sweater and pads to Command where they have a small archive of Game footage, mostly from the Games Katniss, Johanna, and Finnick were a part of. She picks the District 12 tape from the year before, and the first thing she sees when she cues it up is a shock of lilac-colored hair and a magenta suit. The sound is shoddy, so she just watches, watches Effie’s brisk movement and clueless smile, watches the way she seems so completely at home in her bubble of false safety.

 _Home_ , she thinks, shutting off the video. What a concept.

The next morning, she sends for Cressida and tells her to start making the rounds. Let people know slowly. Just give them the barest taste of hope before she can make her move.

*

“So what’s this I hear about you and Our Fair President?” Haymitch slumps next to Effie, his half-empty bottle clanging against one of the metal pipes in the med-bay boiler room. “I like to think I’m above gossip, but we both know that’s horseshit.”

“I believe the best way to answer is _none of your business_ ,” Effie says. She wrinkles her nose at the bottle. “Really?”

Haymitch rolls his eyes. “No, not _really_. It’s cider.” He hands Effie the bottle for a test, but she shakes her head. “I’m being serious. I heard some talk from Finnick about a marriage.”

“Then you heard right,” Effie says tersely. “In two weeks, I’ll marry President Coin in front of District 13 as well as a small portion of the Capitol’s audience.” She shivers in the cold room, but she’d rather be alone with Haymitch than walk down the hallways with everyone’s eyes on her again.

There’s a beat of silence, the pipes clanging merrily. “You’re insane.”

“No,” Effie says, turning to face Haymitch, her _friend_ , one of the only people she trusted. “I’m making my move.”

“Oh, don’t give me that,” Haymitch says, face contorted with disgust. “They’ll really stop at nothing, will they? Oh, the Games are so inhumane, oh, the Capitol is so unfair. Then they throw you into some goddamn sham marriage with the Ice Queen.”

“I am not a _child_ ,” Effie snaps. “I was asked, and I answered. I’ve made my choice.” She thinks of Katniss watching Peeta thrashing in his hospital bed, of Finnick stroking Annie’s hair. _They_ are children. Maybe not in the literal sense, but they _are_ , and they found love without being given a choice. She’s under no impression she will find the same in her own lifetime, so she’s doing what she’s always done best—smiling for the camera and putting on a show.

“Choice,” Haymitch says with a snort, snatching up his bottle. “What a concept.” Before Effie can tug him back down, he stands and opens the door, letting in a beam of harsh light. “Let me know when you come to your senses.”

*

“You’re tense,” Effie murmurs, placing her hands on Alma’s shoulders, kneading the firm muscle. “If we’re going to marry, I suppose I can start helping you with these things.” This is the fifth time she’s ever met her wife-to-be, but she’s not nervous.

Alma stiffens, but she doesn’t shrink away from the touch. “Miss Trinket, I don’t think you understand what a political marriage really means for us.” She’s staring at the Command screen, watching as Katniss stands outside Mellark’s med-bay room for the thousandth time that week. “I don’t expect intimacy from you, and nor should you from me.”

“You underestimate me,” Effie says, pressing the tips of her fingers deliciously into Alma’s back, right at the juncture between neck and spine. Just because Effie was born into the Capitol, she was not born into security. There were thousands of young men and women vying for her Escort position, and she didn’t get it with smiles and a high-pitched voice and a nice coif. No, Effie Trinket got her Escort position because she was _smart_. “We play roles, President Coin. There’s an old writer who said something along the lines of ‘the world’s a stage and the men and women merely players.’” She rests her hands on Alma’s shoulders, a comforting gesture. “If we can’t play the part, the audience won’t respond very well, will they?”

“William Shakespeare,” Alma murmurs, stormy eyes still locked on the screen.

“Pardon?” Effie barely hears her words as she moves slowly around Alma’s chair to stand before her, hand trailing down Alma’s arm.

In a swift, cat-like move, Alma wraps her fingers around Effie’s wrist and _tugs_ , hard enough that Effie stumbles into her lap. “The old writer. His name was William Shakespeare.” Effie’s knees press against the leather of the chair on either side of Alma, an _obscene_ gesture, something Effie never believed her body would contort to. But through all its ridiculousness, Effie is not afraid.

“Alright,” Effie says, not knowing what else there is to say when her face is inches away from Alma’s, their eyes locked. So she decides not to say anything—instead, she closes the space between them, pressing a hesitant kiss against Alma’s lips. They’re a bit dry, but Alma was once married—she’s no stranger to kissing, to touching, to the ways of marriage. Not like Effie. Alma deepens the kiss, just a little, and Effie feels her lips part, her body melt _just so_ into Alma’s.

“Are you prepared to give the people what they need?” Alma’s lips brush Effie’s as she speaks, the movement unbearably intimate.

The phrase makes Effie’s body thrum with excitement. What the people _need_ , not what they want. What a concept. “I’m prepared,” she says, and kisses Alma again.


End file.
